Struggling to get Lightbar circuit to work! Help!

I installed a lightbar today for the first time. It is attached to my brush guard and looks good. I wired it myself and I thought a did a good (albeit not visually perfect) job and I was happy to be done after about 3-5 hours of work (I had never wired anything on my truck before) I consulted my neighbor and read other forums and watched a youtube video but it still took me a while.
I finally reconnected my battery and fired it up and it started however my switch did not light up and neither did my lightbar.
I think it is either my splices or my neutral switch wire which is causing the issue, i connected my neutral switch wire to my positive battery terminal so I don’t know if they could be the issue
I know I am new but I worked really hard on it and want to get it to work. I appreciate any advice in my bummer state.
Thanks so much for any help.

 

Have you got any pictures of the way you have the switch wired? You should have a line hot to the switch and switch off should just have power on 1 side so you flip the switch and it completes the circuit. Then you should have a ground wire to a bare piece of metal .

 

I have the white (power) wire connected to the relay which is connected to a fuse which goes to the posi terminal on the battery(white circle) All my (3) grounds are connected to the battery grounds (blue) and my neutral wire is connected to the battery posi terminal too (red) im not sure if that’s wrong. Apologies for the crude drawing

 

what parts are you using?

 

Lightbar, Aftermarket wiring harness with a fuse, relay and a switch. If that’s what you mean in terms of parts. My truck is a 2011 4.0 and I think it is just novice wiring on my part

 

can you provide links to the parts used?

i really can't make out what/where all the connections are in the pictures, so starting with the base components makes it easier to indicate where connections should be made

 

Have you checked the fuse to make sure it didn’t accidentally blow?

 

I know it is a pilot lightbar, and an Anzo wiring harness kit.

Not yet I will go do that rn. I hope not !!!

 

Do you have access to a volt meter to confirm it’s good? I’ve seen them look good but actually be bad. Are you trying to have the light bar come on with something else hence the relay?

 

Ok, I think I got it figured out from your original post. You have a 3 wire circuit , 1 hot , neutral and ground. Correct? Take the relay out of the equation and you should have a hot from battery to fuse to switch then hot out to light bar. Neutral should be to neg battery and then the ground.

 

I can check it with one tomorrow. I just wanted the light bar to be on only when I flick a switch on, while the car is running. I just used the relay as the lightbar I bought did not come with a harness and my neighbor kindly gave me one he had which is what i’ve been wiring with.

 

What you’re essentially doing with the switch is breaking the hot wire. Power to fuse, fuse to switch and power from switch to source.

 

I think that is the case. This is the original diagram with the harness kit.
All my ground wires are together in the green circle. The green arrow comes from the switch. The blue is where my neutral wire was connected to the posi terminal. However I just took that off when you mentioned it.
The red arrow is the positive wire coming from the relay towards the switch.

 

Most all relays are numbered. look on the relay for the pin numbers.
Read the information in the link below.
If you read it, you'll learn a lot.

Plus the relay pinout with diagrams are there too
https://www.electronicshub.org/relay-wiring-diagram/

 

Thank you! I have learned so much already today and I am glad I failed so I can learn more.

 

Excellent way to see it, always learn from your mistakes and something I always go by when troubleshooting. KISS keep is simple stupid and it’s always something simple.

 

this helps significantly!

for starters, lets stop calling it a neutral-- it's screwing with my head here!, a neutral is household electrical wire, but it's always a primary return path. ground in household is an emergency return path. in car electrical, we have power from the battery, switched loads from the switch/relay, and ground--otherwise, the return to the battery. there's no neutral.

these are sort of statements, but sort of questions/troubleshooting steps i would generally follow:

to clarify, you have the white going into the fuse connected to the positive battery terminal. that goes into the relay.

out of the relay, should be a white and black that goes to the new light bar, black should be a double wire under 1 crimp attached to the ground.

also out of the relay, should be a separate ground wire that goes to ground.

from the relay to the switch is going to be a black/red/white. black will be the final ground in the system, white should already be connected.

the red wire is the 'trigger' wire-- this should be connected to a switched power source, generally this is done by locating a fuse that powers on/off with the truck, and adding a

$7 Sodcay 5 PCS 12V Car Add-a-Circuit Fuse, with 4 x 15A Inserts, TAP Adapter Mini ATM ATO Blade Fuse Holder, for Cars Trucks Boats (Black)

fuse tap. this can also be temporarily connected to the battery positive, which should make everything come on and operate. though it's not ideal, as the light bar can be accidentally left on, and some switches led indicator lights stay on, which can drain your battery.

follow your connections-- i like to start with where power starts, and ensure that it has a solid path through the new device(check your connections--electrical tape is not a suitable long term connection!), all the way back to ground.

oh and one other note that sounds ridiculous. if you follow all these steps, and you can hear the relay clicking, but the light bar still fails to turn on, flip the positive and negative wires on the light bar. i've had a few brands of lights wire everything backwards, which really screws with wires and colors...

 

Okay thank you so much. I followed your advice and this is what I came up with. I’m still having a little bit of a hard time understanding why the system didn’t work if my trigger switch was connected right to the posi terminal. I’m guessing if I connected my trigger switch to a tap then it still might not run as it’s possible my splines were bad. I have never done them before so used only electrical tape. I have a heat gun and the shrink wrap but didn’t use them mostly.
Here is what I came up with. Green = hot wire (i think that’s the term) Blue is my grounds and Red is my trigger wire setup (no connection at the moment)

 

Your red wire could be run into the fuse box and use an add a fuse on parking light fuse. Then it should make your relay hot When the parking lights are on , then when you flip the switch it should turn on. Or you could extend the red wire and run it into the cab and tap into the fuse box under the dash . The diagram is showing red wire going into the positive side of the headlight, so the switch would work when the headlight is on.